Rise

Very few players still remembered the early days of League of Legends. The days before it turned into a world-wide sensation. Even in those days though, there was a group of professional players who were better than anyone else; the Unrivalled Ten. But that title, that group, had long since lost all meaning. People that were into League today wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if someone talked about the Unrivalled Ten from back then. If anyone bothered to even engage with that now, they’d say that “Unrivalled Ten” didn’t mean anything since there were probably only ten professional players back then. There really weren’t many players back then, and being the best of that small group just didn’t mean much. The argument had an internally consistent logic to it, and common sense validated its truth. Then they’d go on to talk about how much the competitive scene had changed since the Season 1 days. If you happened to be having this debate with someone who was into both webnovels and League of Legends, then they might add some profoundly douche-adjacent flavor to the argument like, “Monkeys proclaiming themselves Kings on a mountain with no tiger.” Or even exclaim that, “those early pros were nothing more than big fish in a small pond!”

Lin Feng knew guys like that. Guys who thought they were 200IQ every time League was brought up, believing that they knew everything about the old days just from a few highlight clips and what they’d heard about the players back then. Lin Feng belonged to the small group of players who knew how wrong those guys were, who understood how misguided this belief was. It goes without saying that a lot of the professional players from Season 1 no longer played competitively or had quit League of Legends completely. But there were also a few who continued to play at the highest level. The most important thing to know, though, was that six players from the Unrivalled Ten still continued to play League of Legends. Four of them ranked among the Seven Kings and Four Emperors. The most famous ones were the midlaners Rake and Phoenix, who ranked first and third in the Unrivalled Ten. They still competed in every big event, and they were both in the Four Emperors. The other two were part of the Seven Kings, one being from Europe and the other one from North America. They weren’t just celebrities in the esports world, they were Gods. Everyone who knew even the tiniest bit about the competitive scene knew their names, and even people outside esports knew of them.

Thinking about the Unrivalled Ten reminded Lin Feng about his old team, and he thought about them while scratching the back of his head. His old team had some amazing players now that he thought about it. One of them was Fatty, who was given the loving nickname of “God Roundy” by his fans. He ranked 13th, just outside of the Unrivalled Ten. Then there was the support who made it onto the Unrivalled Ten list in tenth place. Finally there was Lin Feng himself. Until the finals of the Season 1 World Championships, he shared the number one position with SSK’s Rake.

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Now that the teams and groups for the Season 5 League of Legends World Championships were announced, people started counting down the days until it started. The excitement and competitive spirit of the event was infectious, and many Chinese players caught the bug. They tried climbing the ranked ladder to show their friends how high they could get before the season ended. Of course, there were also those who were more interested in the spectator side of esports. They didn’t really care all that much about playing ranked games or climbing. Instead, they spent every minute of their free time on Huya, memeing around in chat or getting into intense debates as they watched their favourite streamers climb up or down the ranked ladder. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novｅlfire.net

This also led to a massive influx of new viewers on HuyaTV. Everyone wanted to get in on the fun. Su Xue was one of the many streamers whose viewer count skyrocketed as Worlds approached. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses though. Getting a bunch of new viewers during a temporary surge wasn’t worth much. Retaining them, converting them into permanent viewers required a lot of effort. Su Xue worked a lot harder than the majority of the other streamers. She was willing to grind, build up her viewership, instead of treating it as a casual hobby. But she was getting run down trying to entertain all of these new viewers while still keeping her old ones. Before the surge, she’d start her stream in the afternoon and end around 1 or 2 AM. But all the new people jumping on wanted more, they wanted her to stream more than the 10 hours she’d been doing. Every time she announced that the stream was going to end soon at 1 AM, they’d plead with her to stay longer. Some even started demanding that she continue longer.

「Nooooo! Don’t goooo!」

「One more game! Pplssssss pls pls pls one more game!!!!」

「how about an inhouse?」